Flying to Surf

By Michael Tilly

Flying and surfing interested me at a young age. When I was young, we used to fly over to Hawaii to visit my mom’s family and my dad would always bring surfboards. At this time I was about four years old and I always had my assortment of mini commercial planes in my carry-on where I’d set them up on my tray table to practice landings. A few years later, I upgraded to traveling with surfboards. Surfing is a huge part of my family’s life. All I wanted to be was a professional surfer like my dad. I spent most of my childhood traveling up and down the California coast competing. I won my first surf contest when I was seven years old.

Traveling and surfing continued to make up my childhood. While I stopped traveling with my mini airplanes, my interest in flying remained. Finally when I was 12, I took my first flight in a Cessna 172. After that flight, I knew I wanted to make flying a career. I was finally able to begin my flight training when I was 16. I flew out of John Wayne, a very busy class Charlie airport, that gave me a lot of experience flying in busy airspace. It was challenging and daunting at first but ultimately it helped me become comfortable flying in busy airspace and around commercial airliners. A few months after I began training, I did my first solo flight. I still remember the day, my mom, dad, and sister parked on the side of the airport and watched me do my first three laps in the pattern solo!

During that time I was juggling high school as well as competing varsity on the surf and tennis teams. During the week, my focus was devoted to school, surfing and tennis. Weekends were spent flying, attending ground school and surfing. It was a busy schedule but one I loved! Flying continued to fascinate and capture me.

However, during this time there was one particular flight where I made a few mistakes and the instructor in the cockpit got really upset with me. Unfortunately, it caused me to lose confidence in myself. As I continued to fly I started to get nervous before flights and was doubting myself. That took the joy out of flying and ultimately caused me to take a break from flying for about three years. I still had a passion for aviation but at the time didn’t want to fly. I was struggling with what I wanted to do and if pursuing a flying career was still the path for me. After I graduated high school, I took a gap year and moved to the Gold Coast of Australia with my sister. Surfing and the ocean has always been a space where I felt comfortable and I spent this time of my life doing the things I enjoyed: surfing and traveling. My sister is a professional surfer and won the WSL Longboard World Title back in 2015. During this time, I joined her on tour and I traveled around the world with her to all her surf competitions where I worked with her as her coach. I got to surf new places in Australia, Spain, Taiwan, and New York, which was an amazing experience.

After my one year visa was expiring, I moved back to Southern California and I felt it was time to try flying again. After a few flights back my confidence came back and I was excited to fly. I started flying and doing ground school everyday and excelled quickly. A few months later, I got my private pilot’s license flying out of Sunrise Aviation.

Fast forward two years and I earned my instrument rating, commercial single and multi engine rating, CFI and CFII at Sling Pilot Academy out of Torrance Airport. Eventually, I became an instructor there as well. I love teaching while I’m building up my hours; I feel it makes me a better pilot as I’m reaffirming the basics every time I go up with a student. More recently, I got my tailwheel endorsement and completed the primary aerobatics course flying a standard and super Decathlon through Sunrise Aviation.

I am now a CFI at Sunrise Aviation where it all began and I’m loving it. Right now I am transitioning to the back seat of the Decathlon learning how to teach aerobatics. I still find refuge in the ocean and I spend most mornings surfing before heading to the airport. Spending as much time in the water and the air are helping me to stay balanced and enjoy the moment I’m in. Looking ahead, my goal is to fly wide-bodies internationally, so I can continue enjoying my passions of traveling the world, flying, and surfing.